Category Archives: family fun

One of the great people of Garner – aka “my dad”


Garner, NC. That may ring a bell for some of you; it’s the hometown of American Idol winner, Scotty McCreery. I like it for two other reasons – my mom and dad. They moved there several years ago to be nearer to their grandkids. Not long ago, my dad sat down with the Mayor of Garner to talk about life in this beautiful city. I want to share his interview with you. After watching it, you might just want to relocate to Garner! Garner, NC, is not my hometown, but my parents? Well, they’ll always be my home. Wherever they lay their heads, my heart rests there as well.

May the peace of Christ rest upon you this weekend, friends.

To watch the video – go HERE! 

PS: The winner of one of Leah’s books is Sonja! I’ll be contacting you privately to secure your choice.

Christmas Is

She held on tightly, arms wrapped fully around my waist and her head burrowed deeply in my coat.

“Mom, I don’t want you to go.”

Her plea was persuasive but not enough to keep me from loading up the van and making the two hour trek northward to my parents’ home.

“I know, baby, that you don’t want me to go, but it is because of this very reason that I must go. You see, I have the same kind of love in my heart for my mom as you have for me. And this is my way of wrapping my arms around her and letting her know that I, like you, don’t want her to go.”

And with that, my daughter released her grip, signaling her willingness to share me. To allow me to make the journey home so that I might spend a few hours expressing love tangibly. Not so much in words, although words always find their way into such extravagance (case in point – this post). Mostly, it’s just living love by being together.

This is why I make these frequent trips home. This is how I hug my momma’s heart and express to her from the deepest place within me …

“Mom, I don’t want you to go.”

Not that she plans on doing so anytime soon. This isn’t a good-bye post. Mom (and dad) are in good health. This is just one of those pauses in the road, a rest stop of sorts when all I have to give is the gift of a few words added as a postscript to the gift of a few moments spent together.

Isn’t this mostly it … the message of Christmas? A family’s love wrapped up in moments? A child wrapping arms around hearts and expressing that which often seems inexpressible?

Love.

Oh there’s faith and hope and all the many soulful expressions of a life lived with Jesus, but at the end of the day … at the end of our journeys, love wins the day. Love given to us on earth. Love given to us from heaven.

It’s in these pauses—these moments that we take to hug one another—where we’ll find the heartbeat of Christmas. Wherever love lives, God is.

Some 2000 years ago, a Father hugged his Son and sent him on a journey to his mother’s house. She, in turn, hugged the Gift as he arrived. I don’t know about the many conversations that must have transpired between Mary and Jesus during his earthly tenure, but I imagine there was one or two not so unlike the exchange shared between my daughter and me just a few days ago. Perhaps something along the lines of …

“Son, I don’t want you to go.”

“I know, mom, that you don’t want me to go, but it is because of this very reason that I must go. You see, I have the same kind of love in my heart for all of God’s children that you have for me. And this is my way of wrapping my arms around them and letting them know that I, like you, don’t want them to go. Instead, I want them to be with me, in the place where I am going. This is why I must make the journey home to my Father’s house. This is why you must let me go.”

And with that divine declaration, Mary released her grip, signaling her willingness to share her son with the world. Indeed, living love by being together! God with us. Immanuel. God in us. Immanuel. God through us. Immanuel. This is the message of Christmas.

Tend to your loving this week, friends. Keep it in mind, and then take the time to live it with arms and hearts wide open. Wherever love lives, God is. May it be so for each one of us in our pilgrimages to the manger this year. As always …

Peace for the journey,

 

Good to Me

“Mom, I need to tell you something about that song. It just touches my heart.”

Her assessment was correct as evidenced by her hand over her heart, tears rolling gently down her cheeks.

“Just imagine, mom, people hearing those words for the first time and asking ‘Who … who has been good to me?’ Just think of how many might come to know Jesus for the first time if they took the time to ask (and then answer) the question.”

And then I did … think about it, all night long in fitful sleep and now this morning.

What about that particular question (in identifying the Giver of all goodness) might lead a person to move within arm’s reach of God?

Audrey Assad’s song Good to Me is a new favorite in our home. My daughter is learning to play it on her guitar. Somewhere in the midst of the E chord, A and F# chord, correct fingering, and strum patterns, Amelia’s heart was moved beyond the mechanics of the song to wrestle more deeply with the meaning of its words:

“I put all my hope in the truth of Your promise

And I steady my heart on the ground of Your goodness

When I’m bowed down with sorrow I will lift up Your name

And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy

Because You are good to me, good to me

You are good to me, good to me

You are

Good to me.

I lift up my eyes to the hills where my help is found

Your voice fills the night – raise my head up to hear the sound

Though fires burn all around me I will praise You, my God

And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy

Because You are good to me, good to me ….”

(Audrey Assad, from the album Fortunate Fall, 2013)

Steadying our hearts on the ground of God’s goodness, in sorrows, through fires, even when foxes lurk in the vineyards threatening to consume the fruit of our labors. Even in these, joy can exist. Why? Because God is good, and God gives good gifts to his children, even when they are unaware of his generous dispensation. How might they begin to figure it all out?

Well, maybe by asking this simple question:

Who … who has been good to me?

Go ahead, ask the question. Make a list of the many goodnesses in your life if you’d like. And, if you’re brave, ask the question:

Who … who has been good to me?

Trace it back as far as you’re able and, then, allow the Holy Spirit to finish the drawing. No doubt and with 100% accuracy, he’ll land you back at your roots, your firm foundation—the solid rock of God through the saving grace of his Son. God is where all goodness begins. He is where all goodness resides.

And therein is our salvation. Therein, lives our answer.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” –James 1:17

Sing it like you mean it. Live it like you know it, and see if God doesn’t move your heart and the hearts of those who sit beneath your influence into closer proximity with his.

Just imagine … how many. I know my daughter is. I know the Father is as well.

Peace for the journey,

 

pilgrims on pilgrimage

They threw their lanyards on my desk. Safe-keeping I suppose. Mom tucking away treasures for later retrieval, a time when things will be remembered. Events remembered. This remembrance.

Pilgrims on pilgrimage.

In thinking about this milestone in their journeys of faith, I think on my own. Those seasons of youth retreats, conference gatherings, and mountaintop moments of kingdom clarification. And while my mother didn’t pack away any “lanyards” of remembrance for me in those earlier seasons, my heart still remembers what it was like to be a young pilgrim on pilgrimage.

Now I am an older pilgrim on pilgrimage. The destination has not changed since the days of my youth, but the route to that destination? Well, it’s not what I had imagined all those many years ago when I first put my heart and my hands to the grace plow. There have been a few detours along the way. Still and yet and to this day, God’s road is before me, pebbles of the gospel truth cradling my scarred feet.

Faith walks on despite missed exits and alternate routes. Sometimes faith rides the high winds of glory. Sometimes faith wallows desperately in the shallows. And sometimes … most times, faith simply walks on. Walks forward. Walks through.

Perhaps I’ll pin these words, this truth to their lanyards so that years from now, when they pull them out of their remembrance boxes (and after life has afforded them each a few detours along the path of grace), they’ll better understand what it is to be a pilgrim on pilgrimage. That their mother at forty-seven was still walking on in faith despite missed exits, despite everything that threatened to stymie her pilgrimage home. Perhaps they’ll need to know that then even more than they need to know it now.

Oh the great consistency of faith that grabs hold of a heart and never lets go!

Oh the certain grip of mercy that keeps hearts upright and willing to believe in the destination even though current scenery is blocking the view!

Oh the limitless love of Jesus that never grows weary of the grace-chase and that never runs out for or away from sinners!

This is what has kept me. This is Who has kept me. What more can I do? Who more can I be?

I am a pilgrim on pilgrimage, just like my children. Faith has brought us thus far. Faith will lead us home. Every last one of us. Billy. Elaine. Nick. Colton. Jadon. Amelia.

Yes, I’ll pin this proclamation to their lanyards so that in the future when their children ask them, “What do these words mean?” they’ll be able to tell them the truth about a woman named Faith Elaine who walked on in faith, despite missed exits and alternate routes … all the way through, home to arms of Jesus.

This is good legacy. This is the best I can give. May God keep and preserve this remembrance in their hearts as they make their pilgrimages of faith. Walk on, sweet ones. Walk always with Jesus.

Peace for the journey,

Living Deuteronomy 4:9

My heart and my pen landed on this verse this morning, while scribing the words of Deuteronomy into my Journible:

“Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” –Deuteronomy 4:9

And I thought about my dad and our time of circled prayer in my garage last Saturday morning which included my mom, my husband, and my two younger children. I am my father’s child and these are his grandchildren; he continues to make faith deposits into all of us.

A word here. A prayer there. A genuine love wrapped up in arms and with enough hearty laughter to crack even the driest of souls wide open to receive God’s showers of grace.

My daddy has not forgotten the things his eyes have seen, nor has he let them slip from his heart. Instead, he remembers the faithfulness of his Father and lives it forward. What he has sown into me, what he has sown into my children, cannot be measured on this side of eternity. His scattering of kingdom seed roots deeply in our hearts – a generational dispensation of faith. Who we are, in part, is directly linked to who he is.

I am grateful for all the ways I see my father’s faith at work in my life and in the lives of my children. I am grateful for all the ways I’ve yet to see my father’s witness walk on eternally. He has been careful and intentional with his legacy of faith. I am challenged to live accordingly … to remember the things my eyes have seen and to not let them slip from my heart as long as I live.

What about you? How goes it with your remembering, your slipping? Your generational dispensation of faith? When was the last time you circled your family members for prayer or spoke bold truth into their hearts?

This is not the time to shrink back in your faith, friends. To assume that no one is listening or no longer needs the witness of your history with Jesus. There’s too much in that place (your history with Jesus) not to speak it forward. What God has done for you—in you and with you—is a mighty work of grace. He means for it to walk on eternally in the hearts, minds, and souls of those who sit beneath your influence.

This is how we get home safely to Jesus—the thread that tethers us back to our beginnings when Father God hovered over the dark and deep and determined that we would be part of the goodness that flows out of him. Adam and Eve, all the way down the family tree until you and me. Generation after generation of obedient and willing saints who chose not to forget the things their eyes saw or let them slip from their hearts for as long as they lived.

That’s a lot of circled prayer time, a lot of faith lived forward. It reaches down through history, through the words of Deuteronomy, in all of God’s Word, and, most importantly, in the words of my daddy whose extraordinary faith has warmed the hearts of all who’ve drawn close to its flame.

What I have seen I will remember. I will not let it slip from my heart for as long as I live. I promise.

I love you, daddy.

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